Psychological bases of programmed instruction

This paper puts forward an argument for using a cybernetic approach to programmed instruction in order to make the control of the teaching process more efficient. It argues the need for a micro-approach to program construction which takes into account not only the correctness of response but also the psychological activity of the learner.The author presents a summary of Prof. P. Galperin's theory of stage by stage formation of mental actions as well as presenting a method for putting the theory into practice in the construction of teaching programs.Finally, there is a presentation of the methodology and results of various teaching programs in which control over the cognitive activity of the learner was carried out.This article is based on Professor Talyzina's work up to 1971. Ed.     

A cybernetic approach to programmed language instruction

Introductory remarks

In the following discussion, the term language instruction is used in the sense of teaching the manipulation of language mechanics. This enables the student to produce grammatically correct sentences and strings of sentences in response to any given sentence meaning or string of sentence meanings and to understand the cognitive meaning of any given sentence formulations. The skills he practises during foreign language instruction thus correspond to the content of those rules in a transformational grammar which are not contained in the base (Chomsky 1984) and to their inverse.